Letters to Nowhere(84)

Bentley laughed under his breath. “You’re probably right about that. I was the same way at his age. I had a few injuries outside of the gym that almost got me kicked off the National Team.”

I sat up straighter. “Really?”

He narrowed his eyes. “I’m not giving you details.”

“What am I doing in Chicago? What are my routines?”

“What do you want to do?” he asked, like he meant it. Like he might actually leave it up to me. Two days ago I would have been elated to hear this.

I exhaled and leaned into the couch. “I don’t know what I want. It feels like everything’s different now.”

“I haven’t had a chance to say this before,” Bentley said. “But I will now, since you already know what I think of your gymnastics potential. I think you have all kinds of other potential, too. You can stay here with me and Jordan even if you don’t want to go to Chicago and even if you don’t want to be an elite gymnast anymore and even if you decide not to go to UCLA. Your grades are fantastic. You’re smart, you can get an academic scholarship. You can do a lot of things. Actually, that’s what your mom wanted for you.”

This got me to sit up straight again. “My mom told you she wanted me to quit gymnastics?”

He shook his head. “She talked to me in December, requested a meeting. She started off by saying she knew you weren’t going to be Stevie Davis and she was afraid, even though you’d signed your letter of intent, that any positive progression during the season would make you set your eyes on going to Worlds again and that you’d get your heart broken not making the World Team. She wanted you to officially resign as an elite, to scale back on practices, maybe go to regular school, experience life a little more, but only if I thought that college gymnastics was going to be the best you could do. She wasn’t lowering her expectations of you, she just didn’t know any better, and honestly, she hadn’t been told anything but that for years by Coach Cordes.”

He waited for me to act shocked or surprised, probably, but I just shrugged. My mom and I had had the “scale back on practice and go to regular school” talk on many occasions, more like arguments. And of course that was a big item on Mom’s “Karen’s Future Plan” list. She probably went to Bentley secretly because it went against the compromise Dad had made both of us agree to. We all knew, to prepare for college, I could just train four or five hours a day, five days a week. That wasn’t enough for an international elite.

“I know you’re angry, and I’m not saying this to try to change your mind or discredit the severity of what happened, but in the short time I knew them, your parents were the rare few who didn’t seem to be so caught up in your career that they couldn’t step back and see other options for you besides being an international elite gymnast,” Bentley continued.

“Wait…was Jordan at the gym that day in December? When you had a meeting with my mom?”

Bentley paused to think. “I think he was, actually.”

That was when he’d met her. She was talking to Bentley about realistic goals for me. She wouldn’t have done that with me around. “What did you tell my mom?”

“I told her that it was very risky to make predictions early, but I thought you would regret not giving the elite season your best effort, especially with your shoulder healed and that competitive fire present. I could tell you wanted it, and that’s not when a gymnast should stop.”

“But if I don’t do well in Chicago, what are my chances of making the World team? And if I make the Pan Am team, are my chances of making the World team going to be that much better?” I asked. “I know I can wait until fall semester actually begins at UCLA to start training with the team, but what about beyond that? Am I risking my scholarship and my spot on the team?”

“I’m not going to lie to you, it will be difficult to make the World team if you don’t show up and do well in Chicago, and being on the Pan Am team will probably make it ten times easier to be selected and give you some international experience before Worlds. Even a great showing at Nationals doesn’t prove your worth to judges outside of this country.” He watched me closely, probably to see if I would fall apart hearing this.

I mostly felt numb. Stuck between two places and not sure if I wanted to move forward or backward. At the moment, I wanted to stay put. “I figured that much.”

He patted my knee and stood up. “Let’s finish cleaning the garage before the sun comes up. Just think about what you want to do next week. You don’t have to decide right now.”


Coach Bentley,




I’m not the only one in the room right now showing the potential to be great. You could be a great father if you decided to.




Love, Karen




I nodded and stood up, stretching before slipping on my flip–flops again. “Is Tony in trouble? I’m assuming you found the folder.”

Bentley nodded. “I returned it already, and I think his mother is secretly impressed that Tony had the skills to swipe it. He’s never been more than a C student. Don’t worry, she’ll go easy on him.”

Oh man…poor Tony. Poor, kind, easy to manipulate Tony. I’d have to apologize in the morning.

When we walked back into the garage, I noticed a trophy sitting on top of the deep freeze. On closer examination, I realized it had been broken and then somehow put back together. It was my oldest trophy. Level 7 state championships. I had won All–Around and Blair had won Floor, and we’d had identical trophies on our laps the whole car ride home.